1 month ago
A spot forms on the back of my right leg, in between my calf and my thigh. It starts to swell and seep, as if it were infected. Over the next few days, I bathe it in boiling salty water and squeeze out a lot of pus, and finally pull out what I can only describe as a 'pus-plug'. This left a hole in my leg about half the diameter of a pencil but about 1 cm deep. I kept it clean and it scabbed over and healed.
10 days ago
2 similar spots form in similar places on my left leg. The bottom one doesn't look too bad, but the top one looks bad. Not very swollen yet.
6 days ago
Starting to swell quite badly. Difficult to bend my leg, top one extremely swollen and infection spreading up my leg and encompassing it - hurts around half of the circumference of my leg now as opposed to the last one which hurt only around a 2 inch radius
3 days ago - Saturday
I'm meant to be coming home on monday, but my leg is too painful to move properly - I've tried squeezing it to get what I assume would be another pus-plug out, but all that comes out is a thick, brown liquid - pus mixed with blood.
Dad comes and gets me early, picks me up at lunchtime. He gets me home, tries to squeeze it, and suggests we go to the docs.
We call NHS Direct, who refer us to a GP at the Open Hours Office at the local hospital.
6:30pm
Arrive for my appointment with a GP who says it needs to be punctured and drained and me put on a course of anti-biotics. He said he would do the operation here but he didn't have the right tools - he calls up surgery at the hospital and asks for a favour.
7:30pm
See the A&E triage and she sends us up to the SAU, what I assume means the Surgical Assessment Unit.
8:30pm
A bunch of nurses come and ask me questions that aren't related to my condition, assuming I'm being prepped for surgery.
9:30pm
Nothing yet, don't know what is going on.
10:00pm
Nurse tells me I have to stay overnight, inserts a needle into my vein for a drip, tells me I can't eat past midnight and gets me a tuna sandwich.
2 days ago
They tell me I'm having surgery today. The SAU ward is absolutely rammed with people and there was beeping and running around all night. My leg is seeping this thick marbled effect red and light-brown liquid onto my gauss and is literally saturating it. I had no sleep, I'm starving, and very impatient. No one is telling me what is going on.
12pm
I'm told by a doctor that I can have the operation under local anasthetic. Fine, I say, sooner the better.
Nothing happens that day, A&E was rammed with emergency surgery patients, and so I have to wait until the next day for surgery. I'm allowed to eat, and my family and my girlfriend come to visit me with goodies.
The anasthetist/surgeon tells me I'll be having the op under General Anasthetic, I query it, but he says it's best for this procedure as my condition is quite severe. Whatever, it's his job.
I get moved to a quieter ward, very nice old men in there, and I can get a decent night sleep.
Yesterday
I finally go down for surgery at around 11am.
The anasthetist this time round (I don't know the spelling, the people whose job it is to apply anasthetic) is very, very tasty, which is terrible, because you always make a cock of yourself when under General Anasthetic.
She says, "You should feel a tingling sensation"
I didn't, and replied, "No, not yet..."
She says, "oh... Do you drink a lot?"
I say, "yeah, I guess"
She says, "How much? How many pints on a night out?"
And I say, "Well, normally 5, but sometimes up to 10"
Zonked.
I come around from the operation, and I announce proudly, "I think we need more anasthetic!", as, in a daze, I think that the op hasn't gone through because I'm such a heavyweight.
I come around in recovery, and say, "oh... the operation was done?" and the nurse (who is also very hot) smiles and nods. I feel ashamed and pass out.
Back in the ward, the doc says he wants to keep me overnight to check the wound in the morning, as it is an open wound. Can barely move my leg it's bandaged so tightly. Everyone comes to visit again (visiting hours in weekdays are 6:30-8:30 - ridiculous) and I have a very tasty dinner of sweet and sour pork and egg fried rice. I hire out the TV, anticipating a very good night's sleep. Until I realise that the guy who has moved in next to me snores like the devil. It's absurd.
Today
I got literally 2 hours of sleep. I had Kiss FM blasting through my headphones, full volume dance music, and I can still hear him snoring. When he stops, either the nurse comes along to check my blood pressure or give me my antibiotics, or the guy opposite me starts snoring. It's unbearable. The guy diagonal to me feels my pain. I find out that late night/early morning tele is amazing.
The doc does his rounds quite late, and after a tasty croissant for breakfast he comes round at 11am and looks at the wound - wow! what a difference! this is the first time I've seen it, and it looks... normal! there is a bit of leakage but nothing really! I can bend my leg and everything.
He says it looks fine, and it looks like an insect bite, but was confused as to what it could have been. I have to book an appointment with my GP in 3 days time to make sure it's not getting reinfected, but apart from that I'm good to go! No more antibiotics needed!
He signs off my paper work and I get out of hospital at 11:30am!
What a relief! So that's why I haven't been active really on here since saturday... plenty to catch up with!